Indicted Netanyahu Heads for New Term After Top Court Triumph
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can form a government despite the corruption charges against him
(Bloomberg) -- Benjamin Netanyahu was within arm’s length of a new term on Thursday after Israel’s highest court gave the indicted prime minister a green light to form a government and a majority of parliament nominated him for the job.
The back-to-back developments, after three inconclusive elections that called Netanyahu’s political survival into question, promised to end a 17-month political stalemate closely intertwined with his legal woes. Netanyahu is set to govern in a joint administration with rival Benny Gantz under a power-sharing deal meant to give the country a breather from a year-long election cycle and focus on the havoc created by the coronavirus outbreak.
On Thursday evening, Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin handed Netanyahu a two-week mandate to form the next government. Netanyahu and Gantz, who will take over as prime minister after Netanyahu goes first, have set a May 13 date for swearing in their government. That’s just 11 days before the scheduled start of the prime minister’s corruption trial.
Whether the prospective government would offer the country more than a semblance of stability is unclear. There is deep distrust between the two men, and provisions in the accord that grant each veto power over the actions of the other and give their camps equal weight in cabinet and on parliamentary committees could lead to a future logjam.
Both will retain prime ministerial privileges throughout the tenure of the two-headed government.
The fast-developing events began Wednesday night with the High Court of Justice’s hotly anticipated decision, which came as a disappointment to those who say Netanyahu’s stewardship of the nation while accused of bribery, fraud and breach of trust inflicts grievous harm on public norms.
Following two days of deliberations, an expanded panel of 11 judges rejected petitions seeking to break Netanyahu’s grip on power, saying “the indictment against a lawmaker does not prevent his being named to form a government, and by extension, his appointment to lead it.”
The court was asked to weigh in on Netanyahu’s fitness to serve because Israeli law doesn’t explicitly address whether a politician indicted on serious crimes can serve as prime minister.
The prime minister says he’s the victim of a political witch hunt by leftists and journalists opposed to his nationalist agenda. He’s been charged with illicitly accepting gifts and scheming to tilt legislation to benefit media moguls in exchange for favorable coverage.
The criminal allegations have played a major role in the political crisis that has gripped the country since Netanyahu set the election cycle in motion, gambling that staying in power would improve his legal prospects. The votes were essentially a referendum on his rule while under a legal cloud, and the repeated stalemates stalled action on issues as consequential as passing a 2020 budget and how to proceed on a vow to annex land the Palestinians claim for a state.
The economic and policy toll of the endless election cycle has been exacerbated by the ravages of the coronavirus, which has sickened more than 16,000 people, killed about 240 and clobbered the economy. Ultimately, it was the health emergency that cracked open a way out of the political vacuum and extended Netanyahu a political lifeline.
Gantz, a centrist former military chief who had fought the prime minister to a draw three times, reasoned that the country’s leadership needed to close ranks to fight the outbreak and avert a fourth round of balloting. He went back on his key campaign vow never to sit in a government headed by the scandal-tainted Netanyahu, and signed the power-sharing pact with him last month.
The justices on Wednesday also dismissed petitions seeking to strike down the accord, which the challengers said contained unconstitutional provisions. While it contains legal problems, “at this point there is no reason to intervene,” the court found, suggesting it was open to possible future petitions.
With Netanyahu and the deal cleared for takeoff, parliament on Thursday passed laws underpinning the agreement. Hours later, he gathered signatures from a majority of parliament’s 120 members nominating him as the next prime minister. Had he failed to do that by midnight, parliament would have automatically disbanded and a fourth election would have been called.
The joint administration’s major focus in its first six months is to be on remedying the damage caused by the virus outbreak. Isolation measures caused unemployment to soar as high as 27% from under 4%, and the Bank of Israel expects the economy to contract 5.3% this year as the government moves ahead on implementing an 80 billion shekel ($22.8 billion) economic bailout program.
The power-sharing pact also allows movement as early as July 1 on annexing some of the West Bank land the Palestinians claim for a state, a measure approved by the Trump administration but deplored by the Palestinians as thwarting their statehood dreams.
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